!BIOGRAPHY: "Best known as the founder of the North Cumberland Fire District
and owner of the Mackenzie grain mill, the structure that burned in 1987. ...

"Newspaper reports tell us it was Nov. 3, 1963 (three weeks before President
Kennedy was shot) when the area's dignitaries gather to rename the straightened
Sneech Pond Road for Nate Whipple [the Nate Whipple Highway, Route 120].
Whipple, 83 years old, was wrapped in a blanket that chilly day. Those on hand
wished him 'many more years along life's highway. "'Many' turned out to be just
three, but his name will be forever linked to the 10-mile country highway that
links Attleboro to Cumberland Hill. ...

"Everyone in Cumberland knew Nate
Whipple. He was chairman of the Republican Town Committee as well as head of
the fire department where he served as chief from 1925 to 1963.

"He attended
the old Byrant & Stratton School in Providence before setting off to New
York City in 1900 to earn his fortune.

"Biographers say he succeeded, but
don't agree if the fortune came from the stock market or his work as a produce
merchant.

"He arrived in Arnold Mills in 1908 rich but poor in health, they
say, probably suffering with tuberculosis.

"In 1912, he purchased the old
grain mill from blacksmith H. D. Mackenzie and worked it until 1961. Along the
way, he expanded it and bought up the water rights from Pawtucket.

"Today,
the Pentimento antiques shop is located on old Sneech Pond Road (a section of
the original roadway left behind when the straightened highway was
constructed)." --M. Green